Shva

Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, shĕwa (Hebrew: שְׁוָא) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots ( ְ ) beneath a letter. It indicates either the phoneme /ə/ (shva na', mobile shva) or the complete absence of a vowel (/Ø/) (shva nach, resting shva).

For other uses, see Shva (disambiguation).
See also: Schwa (disambiguation)
Shva
ְ‎
IPA Modern Hebrew: /e/ ([e̞]), Ø
Biblical Hebrew: /a/
Transliteration e, ' (apostrophe), nothing
English example men, menorah
Example
The word shva in Hebrew. The first vowel (under Shin, marked with red) is itself a shva.
Other Niqqud
Shva · Hiriq · Tzere · Segol · Patach · Kamatz · Holam · Dagesh · Mappiq · Shuruk · Kubutz · Rafe · Sin/Shin Dot

It is transliterated as ⟨e⟩, ⟨ĕ⟩, ⟨ə⟩, ⟨'⟩ (apostrophe), or nothing. Note that use of ⟨ə⟩ for shva is questionable: transliterating Modern Hebrew shva nach with ⟨ə⟩ is misleading, since it is never actually pronounced [ə] – the vowel [ə] does not exist in Modern Hebrew. Moreover, the vowel [ə] is probably not characteristic of earlier pronunciations such as Tiberian vocalization.

A shva sign in combination with the vowel diacritics patáẖ, segól and kamáts katán produces a ẖatáf: a diacritic for a tnuʿá ẖatufá (a 'reduced vowel' – lit. 'abducted').

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